White rights and White power threaten to topple Norwegian and European liberal democracy by terror tactics, remonstrates Gamal Nkrumah The spectacle of Andres Behring Breivik with his handsome Nordic features, the ideal blond of Nazi Germany's Aryan archetype, plastered all over the Internet is beginning to lose its novelty value. His curious manifesto, hitting the headlines, is coming to look like an item of political furniture. Fathom for a moment the mayhem of the Norwegian capital Oslo in the aftermath of Breivik's bombings. Ponder the sheer strangeness of one of the world's most environmentally friendly and meticulously spotless cities in shambles. Norway has not known a deadlier disaster in peacetime since World War II. For the best part of half a century Norway has been among the most prosperous nations of the world. Norway is the nation that bestowed the Nobel Peace Prize to the world. Breivik, the chief suspect, pleaded non-guilty. He proudly proclaimed that he intended to "save Europe" from the threat of Islam and unwanted immigrants from Africa, Asia and South America. Norway has been the very paragon of liberal democracy. Its security and surveillance measures are among the least intrusive in the world. Breivik's bombings have intimidated the Nordic countries, grappling with a virulent debate over immigration, into soporific caution. Successive Norwegian governments have ducked any showdowns with neo-Nazis and the far right. The twin blasts in Oslo and the resort of Utoya made headlines. Pundits and commentators suggest the cause is not the Norwegian national character but an ominous European political and social phenomenon, the bullish neo-Nazis on the march. Liberal democracy, in the opinion of the far right is a sorry tale of flawed propositions. Praise has been heaped on liberal democracy as the panacea for all social, political and economic ills. "Utoya is the paradise of my youth which has been transformed into hell," lamented the grief-stricken Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in the wake of the Breivik blasts. Norway is in a bind. It has one of the world's highest standards of living and it is undoubtedly among the world's wealthiest nations. Yet in a sense it is a train wreck in the making precisely because in the eyes of a considerable segment of its population it is in danger of losing its national identity because of the influx of immigrants. The irony is that Norway was never a colonial power, indeed for centuries it was a colonial subject of its more powerful neighbours, Denmark and Sweden. It is too glib to say from afar that Norwegians are dimwits, racists and cranks. The sad truth about Norway is that it is not the haven of peace it claims to be. "Norwegian pilots are bombing Libya. Norwegian soldiers have died in Afghanistan," noted Martin Sandbu, the Norwegian-born economics correspondent of Britain's Financial Times. Norwegian Premier Stoltenberg, King Harald and Queen Sonja visited the victims and grieving relatives of those killed in the Breivik blasts. However, there is a curious reluctance to deal head on with what Breivik described as the "cultural Marxism" threatening Europe. Taken at their words, one hopes that most Norwegians subscribe to the country's self-styled "liberal values" that accommodate immigrants, foreign cultural values, races and religions. But the impending fear is that many Norwegians harbour the same sentiments as Breivik. They might not condone his methods, but they do ascribe to his political perspective. How then did Norway whip itself into its present froth? One cannot blame it all on the Nordic country's liberal democracy and its open-minded politicians. After all, Norwegian politicians only go with the wind. "What this attack really highlighted is that Europe is changing, and it has been changing for quite a while," noted the Chicago-based researcher Margaret Bogenrief. "It has got a relatively stable influx of immigrants. What you are seeing now is a decrease in living standards, without confusion about job security in the lower classes." Norway has a GDP per head of $54,000. So who, pray, are the Norwegian "lower classes"? Effectively, they are the immigrants from Africa and Asia and many of them Muslim. The immigrants are struggling for survival in a strange land. The newcomers, as far as the Norwegians are concerned, have abdicated responsibility for their welfare to their hosts, dumping their problems on the powers that be. All this confusion and conundrum came to a head on Friday with the Breivik blasts. The newcomers are now waiting to see what the Norwegian law says, and what it doesn't. The Breivik blasts and its ramifications are merely postponing the day of reckoning for the crux of the matter is that the unprecedented growth in the population of Muslims and other immigrant communities has engendered an impassioned rightward swing in the Norwegian political scene. Breivik protested the "globalist agenda" of Norwegian liberal democracy which is "selling out Norway to mercantile interests". Breivik's grievances sound remarkably reminiscent of the tenets of national socialism. He and his ilk want to replace liberal democracy with a heavy-handed Pan-European conservative, neo-Nazi authority. His 1,500-page manifesto is a blueprint for European revolution reflecting neo-Nazi discourse in Norway and Europe. His document 2083 A European Declaration of Independence outlines a three-stage strategy to overthrow European liberal democracy. Breivik's "Terrorist Manifesto" echoes Hitler's Mein Kampf. The plea of neo-Nazi supporters is that a crusade must be launched. The parallels with Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda are eerily clear to see. Breivik is the opposite coin of Bin Laden. Both have no qualms about lambasting literally innocent civilians. Yet there is an important difference. The neo-Nazis have always been different. Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda want to rid the Muslim world of its atheist overlords, the powerful liberal democrats and the neo-Conservatives -- the Westerners who hold political and economic sway in the Muslim world. Breivik's neo-Nazis want to clear their rich European countries of what they derisively dismiss as the scum of the "Third World". With the burden of the immigrants and the welfare state the Norwegian oil boom the neo-Nazi's reckon will end in disastrous bust. They detest the weak and despise the underdog. The question is whether liberal democrats and neo-Nazis could even agree not to agree in the post-Breivik blast Norway. A mass rally to mourn the Norway attack victim was solemnly staged. "Tonight the streets are filled with love," trumpeted Norway's Crown Prince Haakon Magnus. The far right saw Prince Haakon's statements as a detestable piece of political chicanery. This shows how high tempers are running. Whether that kerfuffle was part of the operatics of post-Breivik's Norwegian politics remains a mystery. Breivik's tragic blunder is also reminiscent of Timothy McVeigh's Oklahoma, a tragedy that has long been forgotten in the United States. Observers have begun to compare US political dysfunction with that of European liberal democracies. On both sides of the Atlantic Ocean economies are flailing. Immigration and terrorism are topping the political priorities and the neo-Nazis under many guises are making the most of the mess. In Europe the neo-Nazi and far right parties are gaining momentum. In France the notorious National Front under the leadership of Jean-Marie Le Pen and now his equally vociferous daughter Marine Le Pen is making impressive political inroads in French politics. The xenophobic Northern League of Italy, too, under Umberto Bossi is crucial to the viability of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's rightwing coalition. Even more sinister is the rise of the centuries old Roman Catholic movement allegedly founded by Saint Dominic is making its indelible mark. In neighbouring Austria, the rightwing Freedom Party of Jorg Haider, the controversial governor of Carinthia and Susanne Reiss-Passer, Austrian sports minister, for all its seeming absurdity is fast gaining many adherents. Nearer Norway, the Danish People's Party under the leadership of firebrand Pia Kjaersgaard clinched 22 seats in the Danish parliament. Norway's own homegrown Progress Party headed by Carl Hagen wants to cap immigration at 1,000 a year and secured 26 out of 165 parliamentary seats for its rightwing demands. Breivik, son of a former Norwegian diplomat Jens David Breivik who separated from the chief suspect's mother when his son was very young, regretted his son's actions. Breivik the son, however, stressed the loss of traditional Norwegian cultural values as due to the influx of the immigrants. Incidentally, Breivik mentioned that one "Richard" -- a British neo-Nazi was his mentor. Whether the Richard in question is the British National Party's deputy chairman Richard Edmonds remains to be seen. The latter was infamous for a Sunday Times article that in 1988 reviewed his Holocaust. John Tyndal formed the BNP far right political organisation as a splinter group of the National Front in 1982. The BNP advocates the imposition of voluntary incentives for the repatriation of non-White immigrants and their descendants and the repeal of anti-discriminatory legislation. The repatriation of non-Whites to their countries of origin is a common call of all European neo-Nazi groups. What is not altogether clear is how strong the links between the disparate European neo-Nazi groups are. The moral of the Breivik blasts appears to be a return to the defining characteristics of contemporary European civilisation, and especially the preponderance of liberal democracy on the continent's political culture. "What does it mean to be free?" asked Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, the French philosopher. "To reason correctly and know the rights of man. When they are well known, they are well defended." Meanwhile, in his 1762 magnum opus The Social Contract, Swiss thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau summed up the ethos of Western liberal democracy. "The consent of the people is the sole basis of a government authority." If Norway and Europe are to restore popular confidence in liberal democracy, the complicated interests of fringe groups such as the neo-Nazis must not be accommodated, no matter how popular they are, and whatever the dire consequences.
